Sisters whose poverty was captured by photographer Oscar Mazaroli take to stage to raise money for Glasgow's homeless

00:01, 4 May 2014

ByScotland Now

ANNE McKenna and Pat Mclean feature in art collections worldwide, but now the sisters will take part in community opera in a four year project to help homeless.

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Pat McLean and Ann McKenna will take part in a community opera as part of a four year project to help the city’s homeless

THE life stories of sisters Anne McKenna and Pat Mclean would certainly rival any opera.

Born into abject poverty Anne, now 59, and Pat, 60, became familiar faces to art lovers and fans of photographer Oscar Mazaroli when they were subjects for both paintings and photos as children living in Glasgow’s slums.

Now the sisters are about to take the stage in a community opera as part of a four year project to help the city’s homeless.

Childhood images of the sisters feature in private and public art collections across the world, paintings so valuable that they command five figure sums on the rare occasions they come for sale.

Anne and Pat, no strangers to homelessness, are members of the Samson family whose hardscrabble childhood in Rotten Row was captured for all eternity by the artist Joan Eardley (1921-63). Eardley worked from a studio in St James Road in Townhead, something quite radical for a young woman in the 1950s.

Their story is well documented and the Samson name is forever linked with Eardley who sketched and painted them over a seven year period, and is regarded as one of the 20th century’s most popular artists.

Life since their childhood has been difficult for both sisters, Anne endured a period of homelessness, but with the help of the Lodging House Mission in Glasgow has managed to put down settled roots. Both sisters also sought their help when they were looking for their missing brother.

It is a project run by the Mission, in conjunction with Scottish Opera and Gorbals choir Givin’ It Laldie, that has brought them to the stage.

“I was born in Rottenrow and stayed there for the first eight years of my life,” Anne explained. “I was the youngest girl in a family of 12. My brother Andrew was the first to meet Joan Eardley and she used to paint him a lot.

“Eventually my mother said ‘let me see this woman’ and when she came to our house my mother told her - ‘I’ve got 11 more if you want to paint them too’. We loved going to the studio and Joan would make us treacle and cheese sandwiches.

“Each time she painted us we got 3d and we’d go straight to the sweetie shop with it. Any paintings she wasn’t pleased with, and there were lots, she’d give to us and we’d make paper aeroplanes with them or they’d be used to light the fire.

“I always remember going to her studio from school one day and her telling us that she didn’t want to paint us anymore. Of course my mother headed straight down to find what was happening, but was very quiet when she came home.”

Joan Eardley died of breast cancer when she 42, just as she was reaching the height of her career. The sisters wonder if the artist had confided in their mother that day.

Pat and Ann Samson by Joan Eardley

Almost three years ago, Anne, became homeless for 18 months, after she arrived home one night to find that the locks had been changed and her furniture dumped round the back of what had been her home of eight years in Royston.

“After spending the night at my daughter’s house (Anne has two daughters 26 and 36), I went straight down to the housing the next morning before the doors had even opened.

“They told me I’d been evicted as they had got word that my house was unoccupied, in spite of the fact that there was money in the electricity and gas metres. When I went back to my house, all my stuff had disappeared.

“I didn’t want to bother my daughter and told her I’d go to the homeless unit, but as I’d had a drink problem in the past, she didn’t want me to risk going incase that would start me off again.

“So I lived with her for a time, then sofa surfed at my brothers and sisters places, until it got to the stage where I wanted to end my life.” Anne makes no attempt to embellish this stark statement.

When asked how it felt to be homeless Anne is unflinching: “It’s a nightmare. You’re eating out all the time so all the money is going on that. You’re depressed. You don’t know what to do with yourself. If this place LHM hadn’t been here, I wouldn’t be here.”

Oscar Marzaroli's picture of the Samson Children at Joan Eardley's Studio, Townhead, 1962

Pat, the more fragile of the sisters, added: “We’ve both been coming here for 14 years. That started when we were looking for our brother who’d gone missing. We just thought ‘we’ll go to Trotters’ as we called this place; he’ll be in there.

“We’ve been coming ever since. Our brother George took ill with drink and died. I worked as a night cleaner but I gave up my house three years ago when I had stroke; it’s left me quite anxious and nervous.”

But that didn’t stop Pat taking part in the community opera performances as Anne explained. “Neither of us are singers and we thought there’s no way we could join in with Scottish Opera – all thae big voices.

“But we joined in and have performed in all the productions over the three years. Before this project I was down there and now I’m up again. I’m sorry it’s coming to an end and hope there can be funding for the future.”

Both are interesting women in their own right, but given that it is their childhood faces staring back at visitors to the National Galleries of Scotland and galleries across the world, they are also iconic symbols of their native city frozen in time.

Pat and Anne are quite matter of fact about not having even a rough sketch themselves. Pat recalled that when the artist was painting her, “She said I had red hair, squinty eye and a face like a turnip.” If they have one wish, it is to track down of a video that was made about Eardley and their family.

As well as their feisty mother, Jean, who is still going strong at 93, nine of the original 12 siblings are still alive; three of the Samson brothers have died.

Rehearsals with professional opera singer Marie Clair Breen (centre)

The children were also photographed by Oscar Marzaroli, whose work caught the look and life of Glasgow old and new. The two sisters are still as close as they appear in images - often with a protective arm round one another.

What matters to the sisters is that they are no longer homeless and both happily settled in a house in the city’s Royston. “We knit kid’s toys to sell them at church fairs and give the money to the Lodging Mission House.

The opera project enjoys it grande finale tomorrow at the Scottish National Youth Theatre and features a double bill of community operas created from scratch and performed by the participants.

Rehearsals have been taking place at the LHM building in East Campbell Street. The cast is includes professional opera singers, Marie Claire Breen and baritone Anders Ostberg.

The creative team of director Lissa Lorenzo and composer/musical director Alan Penman, have been with the project from the outset, as have Givin’ It Laldie choir director Shelly Coyne and the LHM’s Trina Gibson.

Lissa says the cast’s commitment and passion make her job easy, adding: “These are full-on productions and we’ve been rehearsing every week since January. It’s a challenge for the performers to sustain that over two fully-sung shows.

“We recently lost a couple of people for various reasons, some positive, some negative, but everyone in the group is supportive and ready to step in. For some it’s about personal development and increasing confidence and self-worth, while others go on to study more seriously.”

Anders Ostberg and William Leadbitter

As well as the Samson sisters, the cast includes William Leadbetter from Glasgow’s Dennistoun who is playing the title role in Who Killed John King?

William is also studying at North Glasgow College and has come a long way from his days of binge drinking and rough sleeping.

His parents will be in the audience tomorrow and he credits the project with finally turning his life around.

“It started with being in the wrong crowd and drinking a lot which caused friction in the family,” he explained, “so I thought it would be better to go my own way and be independent than cause any more trouble.

“I drifted from hostel to hostel, binge drinking on Frosty Jack and Buckfast until I was unfit for any work. Then four years ago, I got involved with the choir through Shelly Coyne and for the first time in my life I realised that here was something I could do.

“Singing and performing bring out the best in me. Last year they gave me a lead part and the fact that they believed in me gave me a lot of confidence. Although I was terrified before the performances, when I saw the lights and heard the audience, I felt electricity flowing through my body.

“Now I’m at college, writing my own music and I have just been given my own tenancy, and it’s all down to this project. On reflection, I know I went through some bad times, but we’re only human and we’ve all made bad choices.”